Despite the incompentence of our phone company (Verizon), I was able to establish a phone connection in my downstairs home office and now I'm able to dial out and conduct my home business. We're still waiting for the phone company to install the second line that was ordered about 2 months ago. Guess they should not have laid-off all those qualified line-installers. But I guess it's all about money ... since they have the monopoly on installing phone services, they can fire all the lower peons so the CEOs/CFOs, etc can have more money in their pockets.